Various attempts have been made to provide practice and training devices for various skills in the game of hockey. Various examples of such devices can be found in the following documents: U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,0178 by Lombardi; U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,420 by Nandra; U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,842 by Daoust; U.S. Pat. No. 7,104,901 by Mason; U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,958; U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,652 by Woronets; U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,041 by Riivald; U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,799 by Nandra; Canadian patent 1,000,755 by Lombardi; Canadian patent application 2,308,875 by Carrier et al.; Canadian patent application 2,086,130 by Walker et al.; Canadian patent 2,160,746 by Brun; Canadian patent application 2,089,926 by Nandra; Canadian patent 1,305,731 by Maki and Canadian patent 1,221,119 by Smith.
Among prior art devices, Canadian application 2,207,207 by Fiskari et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,815 by Deschesnes and U.S. Pat. No. 6,638,186 by Williams disclose hockey shooting training devices in which the user performs a shooting action with a hockey stick against an adjustable resistance. The resistance in each instance comprises an elastic member which provides an increasing force of resistance with increasing displacement through the shooting action by the player. The continuously varying resistance results in a situation where it is very difficult for a user to maintain a proper technique throughout the shooting action. Furthermore the device provides limited interaction with the user in each instance to further limit the training experience.